DOVER — Rochester parents Alexis and Rob Gilbert say they’re not joking when they tell people they planned their second pregnancy around the opening of Wentworth-Douglass Hospital’s new Garrison Wing. Thirty weeks along, the two said they timed their plans for their second son’s arrival to coincide perfectly with the hospital’s new state-of-the-art Women and Children’s Center.

“He was a preemie at Maine Med,” Alexis Gilbert said, motioning over to her 2-year-old son, Braden, squirming in Rob’s arms during their visit to the wing. “And when we found out Wentworth was putting in a new wing with a new birthing unit, we decided to wait for the second one.”

Alexis is due in March but said she couldn’t wait to stop by and see the new hospital wing during an open house Saturday morning and afternoon.

“We waited,” she said with a laugh.

Vice President of Community Relations Noreen Biehl said hundreds had passed through the new wing that morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of the eye-catching structure. An additional 50 people arrived even before the official open house started at 10 a.m.

“We’ve had lots of people who said they had watched construction, especially those in the neighborhood,” Biehl said, noting construction wrapped up in two years with the groundbreaking in January 2011. “And they were very curious about the building … We’ve been hearing very positive thoughts about the space.”

The new four-story addition, which stands along the southwest corner of the hospital, stemmed from a growing need for space at Wentworth-Douglass to accommodate patients.

The first floor of the building is stylistically designed, with a modern décor and a healing garden wrapped around the structure with a large wind structure near the front entrance. The entry level houses the communications and human resources departments and is also dedicated to education, with a large auditorium space to allow the hospital to host health fairs, conferences and lectures on-site, as well as an research library available for public use.

The second floor of the wing, with a new birthing center that has drawn much interest from families in the area, is equipped with a family playroom, C-section operating room, water birth room and private nursery spaces. Each floor of the wing has also taken on a decorative theme — the second floor’s Women and Children’s Center is based on the “woodland,” where family-friendly foxes, bears and rabbit cutouts decorated the walls.

Manager of Creative Services and Web Content Monika O’Clair also showed off a new nursery made possible by a $250,000 donation from Hannaford Charitable Foundation.

As many tour groups looked over the new level’s features, Alison Leighton, child life specialist, showed off a room where children from toddler-age to 18, and 21 in some cases, will be comfortably walked through the hospitalization process. Leighton said an interactive unit from the Dover Children’s Museum will soon be placed in her room to help clear up any medical “misconceptions” younger patients may have.

“They’ll have loads of fun here,” she said, as she greeted visitors into the space, with decorative airplane and parachute light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.

The third floor houses the orthopedic department where patients can stay and also work through their rehabilitation process. Tour groups were shown the Joint Replacement Center’s exercise room, with equipment donated by the Seacoast Orthopedic and Sports Medicine group. Devices available to assist patients there include a makeshift car so recovering patients can practice getting in and out of their vehicles safely while they heal. The fourth floor is designed for medical and surgical patients, with a similar design to the third floor.

The upper two floors of the Garrison Wing each have 32 private patient rooms their own bathrooms. Staff stressed each patient will have their own room when staying in the Garrison Wing and as patients are moved into the area in the coming weeks, renovations will begin in the older portion of the hospital to update and ensure each person will have their own space in the future.

Biehl said the wing is much more than an addition, so the hospital took pride in naming the uniquely designed four-story structure after Dover’s nickname, the Garrison City.

“It felt like it needed something special,” she said.

The name is derived from the 17th-century homes that were among the first permanent settlements in the area, retrofitted with defensive structures as relations between English settlers and Native Americans began to break down in the late 1600s. The hospital is hoping to invoke connotations of defense, protection and healing with the new name of the hospital wing, according to an announcement published in a newsletter last May. Those same themes are reflected in the architecture and interior spaces of the wing.

The first set of patients will move into the third floor on Jan. 22, with the Women and Children’s Center opening on Feb. 5.